Ya know, I feel like I'm one of these, all too often. But I also believe, and have experienced, that learning can be equally a non-linear phenomenon. It doesn't proceed one brick at a time, but as a tipping point where things suddenly come together. All that tussle is not for nothing.

Its not the tussle I object to. I too experience aikido learning as a series of hard to explain jumps, where things suddenly come together. I was pointing out the refusal of some yudansha to actually look at what the shihan is doing and instead they do whatever variation is most comfortable for them. As Kuribayashi put it: "If you're not going to pay attention to what I am doing, why did you invite me to teach?"